USED TO REJECTION, used to folding her emotions down into a box in the corner of her mind, she almost flinches when she’s disentangled. it leaves her flayed and raw and unstable, the sudden realization of having misstepped, of having miscalculated flashing across her face like a burn. she starts to scramble back – move away and give him ( and herself ) distance, to try and compose herself – but finds herself stopped.
stuck for space as he takes a seat next to her. surprised when, instead of the rebuke she expects, he pulls her closer. her nose, pressed against the collar of his shirt, her face hidden from view, where she doesn’t have to worry about what she looks like to him, or about exposing herself to him like a nerve ending. his arms, blocking out the light – a shield, all on their own. his hands, in her hair. soft. gentle.
her heart aches from the kindness of it.
i will never fault you for it. when had she felt safe enough to do this? when was the last time that she had been this open with someone, without the fear of her emotions being used against her? to manipulate her against erik or against charles or against the brotherhood —- or against her own convictions?
she doesn’t even realize when her vision blurs or when she starts again, not until she tries to breathe and finds it difficult. a deep, shuddering breath. raven crying loudly is a rarity, an action borne of frustration; she is silent, now, except for the hitched breath, the smothered, wet noises that slip out occasionally. she grips him tight, tight enough that it must hurt a little, building up over time, but he doesn’t complain.
when she stops, what could be minutes or hours later, she still feels raw and flayed wide open. she feels like her emotions could still tip too easily into something chaotic and grief-like.
but she feels … better. than she has in a long while.
still not trusting herself to look at his face, she whispers. “i didn’t think i was gonna leave that place. i thought i was – that i’d die there. and no one would ever – ”
IT IS TOO easy to rest his chin on the top of her head and stay that way for the time it takes her tears to dry up, for her body to stop shaking, and for her voice to come back. azazel is generally a patient man, long accustomed to waiting things through (it makes him an excellent sniper, an excellent watchman, an excellent point guard,) and so it is no trouble at all for him to wait for raven to find a stable piece of herself, enough to let her continue forward. he could stay this way for hours if she wanted. (it is worrisome how easily raven fits within his arms, how easily the press of her against him has become a familiar, wanted heat.)
“death is terrible thing to make acquaintance with,” he answers, “she is never kind, but in time, i think, we do grow stronger to her greed.” it’s nothing but a platitude to fill the silence, but it is one such thing he had wanted to hear, once upon a time, and he hopes it soothes something for her, calms a fraying nerve. he smooths a hand down her arm and tangles their fingers together after a breath of silence. “i’ve thought as you did many times. once in kolyma, for nearly a year, i was kept sick and half-dead. i did not think i would live, but i did, as have you.”
his voice is a quiet rumble, unused to bearing much of himself or his experiences to the open ears of another. fumbling for a connection. grasping at dark and tangled threads to weave themselves together. he thinks he might split himself open like a melon and offer all of himself on a platter to her, if he thought it would help.
“should you ever want to leave a place,” he says more firmly, feeling emboldened, wanting her to know these things he thinks. for what good it would do for her. “i will take you elsewhere. you, raven, are memorable to many, myself most of all, and you are never forgotten, no matter where on earth you may be.”
an easy promise for a complicated wound. he knows how little it means, knows how it is a simple rag to a bloodied, gaping maw, knows his fallibility and his incompetence with such things. knows but offers anyway. he had wanted to be more, so what is there now but to try?
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